TEXAS SUPREME COURT HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Sam Houston had meanwhile become the first elected presidentof the Republic of Texas. Houston advocated for the capital of Texasto be Houston City, at the site of burnt-out Harrisburg. 21 He toutedadvantages such as its seaport, its access to the Brazos River, its relativesafety from attacks by Indians and Mexicans, and its low costs. Afterconsidering Houston and several other locations, a commission selectedthe tiny blockade settlement of Waterloo on the Colorado River, whichchanged its name to Austin soon afterwards. One enthusiastic advocatefor Austin was Texas Ranger (and former senator and general) EdwardBurleson. He both surveyed land for the new capital and later servedas vice president of Texas during Sam Houston’s second term, despitemany vehement disagreements. 22Hoping to serve travelers on government business, as Angelinahad done in San Felipe, the Eberlys moved to fast-growing Austin in1839. Angelina managed the inn they built on the north side of PecanStreet between Lavaca and Colorado while her husband served as aTexas Ranger. 23Top: Sam Houston circa 1850,President of the Republic in 1842-43.Bottom: Ed Burleson, Vice Presidentof the Republic in 1842-43. WikipediaCommons, public domain.When Captain Eberly passed away in 1841, Angelina wasagain left a widow with a business and a large household at a timewhen, no matter how circumspect and morally upright her behavior,a single female innkeeper might be suspected of improprieties.Whereas earlier in San Felipe she had earned respect through hergenerosity to poverty-stricken militiamen, in Austin Eberly was alsoaccorded due respect as a leading lady of the community. She waslater described as “not only a hostess, but an invulnerable bulwarkagainst the Indians, and all enemies of the city of Austin.” 24 Anotheraccount characterized her as “a worthy and respected lady, and at thetime proprietress of the Eberly House.” 25 In her role as proprietress,she supplied meals and rooms for sundry Texas dignitaries includingboth Sam Houston (serving in the first and third presidential termsof the Republic) and the second president, Mirabeau B. Lamar.President Houston actually resided in Eberly’s Pecan Street inn in hissecond term in preference to the palatial new Governor’s Mansion,which had been hastily erected from green lumber during MirabeauB. Lamar’s two-year presidency with predictably disastrous results. 2621Jeffrey Kerr, “The Embattled Birth of Austin,” Austin Remembers (Austin Hist. Ctr., Fall 2014); Kerr, Seat of Empire, 53-66, 67-75.22Dorman H. Winfrey, “The Texas Archive War of 1842,” Sw. Hist. Quart. 62, no. 4 (Oct. 1960), 172-74, http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101190/m1/197/, accessed June 11, 2015; Kerr, Seat of Empire, 112-116, 165-173, 177-179, 190-191.23King, Lady Cannoneer, 100, citing John Henry Brown, History of Texas from 1685 to 1892 (St. Louis, Mo.: L.E. Daniell, 1892), I, 165.24Austin Record, Jan. 14, 1870, No. 32.25Gray, Scrap-Book, 143.26Madge Thornall Roberts, ed., The Personal Correspondence of Sam Houston (Denton: Univ. of N. Tex. Press, 1996), I, 123; Haley,Houston, 231, 461 n. 65; Kerr, Republic of Austin, 93-95.42